Milton: A Poem: William Blake, Preface, as it appears in Blake's own illustrated version, 1809 (image by Paul Barlow, 2011)

A scene in a steel mill, Republic Steel Corporation, Youngstown, Ohio. Molten iron is blown in an Eastern Bessemer Converter to change it to steel for war essentials: photo by AlfredT. Palmer, November 1941 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

6 comments:

Yes, among these dark Satanic mills indeed. And the rivers still so polluted, and soon to come the frackers . . . and yet everyone talks of how sad that the mills shut down, how maybe our shale will bring in new jobsand no doubt, new forms of misery and even as they say that they talk of the good old days when you could not hang yr clothes outside . . .Ah well. People are nuts.

Blake's prophetic vision, still more thrill than frill, has (alas) gained only greater accuracy over the centuries.

"For we have Hirelings in the Camp, the Court, & the University: who would if they could, for ever depress Mental & prolong Corporeal War."

"Suffer not the fashionable Fools to depress your powers by the prices they pretend to give for contemptible works or the expensive advertizing boasts that they make of such works..."

"...there is a Class of Men whose whole delight is in Destroying."

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Ray, in this line of prophets:

"...all this work created for men under the banner of 'the war effort'".

There persists a (pre) school of (not quite) thought that would have wars in order to "create jobs".

So many dead, the graduates.

Nin's testimony a wrenching reminder that in tough times people will insist on a nostalgia even for the slag heaps.

"...and no doubt, new forms of misery"

Where better than the historic industrial belts of the English Midlands and northeastern Ohio to seek for witness, of these things.

"Structural issues," that is; as per Stephen's:

structure of field or space,of physical phenomena

sign of which, is thereforepossible, loss

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A transcription of the full text of Blake's Preface:___

The Stolen & Perverted Writings of Homer & Ovid; of Plato & Cicero. which all Men ought to contemn: are set up by artifice against the Sublime of the Bible. But when the New Age is at leisure to Pronounce; all will be set right: & those Grand Works of the more ancient & consciously & professedly Inspired Men, will hold their proper rank. & the Daughters of Memory shall become the Daughters of Inspiration. Shakespeare & Milton were both curbd by the general malady & infection from the silly Greek & Latin slaves of the Sword[.] Rouze up O Young Men of the New Age! set your foreheads against the ignorant Hirelings! For we have Hirelings in the Camp, the Court, & the University: who would if they could, for ever depress Mental & prolong Corporeal War. Painters! on you I call! Sculptors! Architects! Suffer not the fashionable Fools to depress your powers by the prices they pretend to give for contemptible works or the expensive advertizing boasts that they make of such works; believe Christ & his Apostles that there is a Class of Men whose whole delight is in Destroying. We do not want either Greek or Roman models if we are but just & true to our own imaginations, those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall live forever; in Jesus our Lord.

And did those feet in ancient time, Walk upon Englands mountains green: And was the holy Lamb of God, On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine, Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these dark Satanic Mills?